UTB/TSC is a minority community institution emerging as the biomedical research center within the rapidly expanding lower Rio Grande valley. A research infrastructure to support biomedical researchers is currently being build. To supplement and enhance research programs the gola of this application is two-fold: (1) To develop a core facility that will effectively meet, enhance and support the research needs of faculty, enhance the research learning experiences of students, and provide greater opportunity for collaborative research projects addressing specific health needs of medically underserved minority populations between UTB/TSC researchers and students, and faculty at other research intensive universities. (2) to demonstrate to faculty how global genomic/proteonomic data can be effectively utilized, incorporated and thus enhance and widen the scope of currently existing research projects, by acquiring preliminary data that can be utilized in future grant applications. The specific aims of this application are: 1 .To acquire instrumentation for a core facility to provide proteonomic and genomic capabilities 2.To enhance existing faculty research programs by bringing modern genomic/proteonomics capabilities to UTB/TSC 3.To introduce and instruct our students in the use of state-of-the-art research tools and methods 4.To enhance the opportunities of our faculty and students to develop critical and meaningful collaborative and multidisciplinary research collaborations 5. To provide technical staff to ensure that the core facility is available and to provide technical assistance to our faculty and students for their research projects. 6. To generate preliminary genomics/proteonomics data for UTB/TSC faculty that will broaden the scope and enhance the competiveness of their research programs. To accomplish these specific aims we propose to acquire microarray instrumentation, a real-time PCR machine, an electroporation system and equipment that allows for two-dimensional gel separation of complex protein mixtures. The instruments will be housed in a newly constructed Analytical Molecular Biology Core Facility.